Trump administration to defend Alina Habba's tenure as top New Jersey
prosecutor
[October 20, 2025]
By MIKE CATALINI
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments
Monday over whether President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Alina Habba,
has been unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey
since earlier this year.
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled a hearing in Philadelphia
over Habba's appointment, which a lower court judge said in August was
done with a “novel series of legal and personnel moves” and that she was
not lawfully serving as U.S attorney for New Jersey.
The judge's order said that her actions since July could be declared
void but put his order on hold so the U.S. Justice Department could
appeal.
Habba is validly serving in the role under a federal statute that
permits the first assistant attorney, a post she was appointed to by the
Trump administration, the government said in court briefs ahead of
Monday's hearing.
A similar dynamic is playing out in Nevada, where a federal judge
disqualified the administration's pick to be U.S. attorney there.
In the Habba case, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann's decision came
after several people charged with federal crimes in New Jersey
challenged the legality of Habba’s tenure. They sought to block the
charges, arguing she didn’t have the authority to prosecute their cases
after her 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired.
Habba was Trump's attorney in criminal and civil proceedings before he
was elected to a second term. She served as a White House adviser
briefly before Trump named her as a federal prosecutor in March.
Shortly after her appointment, she said in an interview she hoped to
help “turn New Jersey red,” a rare overt political expression from a
prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic
governor and attorney general.
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Alina Habba speaks after being sworn in as interim US Attorney
General for New Jersey, in the Oval Office of the White House in
Washington, on March 28, 2025. (Pool File via AP, file)
She then brought a trespassing charge, eventually dropped, against
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stemming from his visit to a federal
immigration detention center.
Habba later charged Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver with
assault stemming from the same incident, a rare federal criminal
case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption.
McIver denied the charges and pleaded not guilty. The case is
pending.
Questions about whether Habba would continue in the job arose in
July when her temporary appointment was ending and it became clear
New Jersey’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim,
would not back her appointment.
With her appointment expiring, federal judges in New Jersey
exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career
prosecutor who had served as her second in-command.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired the prosecutor installed
by the judges and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney. The Justice
Department said the judges acted prematurely and said Trump had the
authority to appoint his preferred candidate to enforce federal laws
in the state.
Brann’s ruling said the president’s appointments are still subject
to the time limits and power-sharing rules laid out in federal law.
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